IT HAD been three years, seven months, eight days and 42 minutes in coming. It was the moment that most vividly marked the prodigal’s return. From his position on the outside right of midfield, Juan Sebastian Veron, in the sky-blue-and-white stripes of his distant memory and with the No 20 on his back, spied a gap from 25 yards out and struck with his right foot. Ping. A handsome shot hit the post.

Veron made another good attempt at goal and though he did not score while winning his 55th cap, he played with authority in the 4-1 victory over the USA as favourites Argentina opened their account in the Copa America on Thursday.

Veron’s very presence in the squad is one of the event’s curiosities, and before anyone suggests almost anybody can get a berth in a June competition in which South America’s principal stars, such as Brazil’s Kaka and Ronaldinho, have asked to be exempted for tiredness and for which all South American nations qualify automatically, the story of Veron’s return has rather bewitched Argentinians.

Veron, nicknamed La Brujita (the little witch) turned 32 in March. He had played his last international in November 2003, as a second-half substitute in a 1-1 draw with Colombia near the beginning of Argentina’s qualifying for the 2006 World Cup. He had only recently joined Chelsea after two enigmatic seasons at Manchester United: enigmatic because he left mixed impressions at Old Trafford, of a first few weeks when he was being celebrated as a possible Premiership footballer of the year, and then too many anonymous days. The Chelsea episode would do little to raise his status in England, and once Jose Mour-inho came and did not want him, he left for Internazionale, going back to a Serie A where he had won many admirers.

Within a season at Inter, a belief grew that their head coach, Roberto Mancini, liked Veron too much. They had been colleagues at Lazio; Veron became Mancini’s key playmaker at Inter, so if the game slowed or he was too closely marked, Inter seemed to stall as a unit. It is the burden of the sort of footballer Veron has always been, a man whose passes, ambitious shooting and imagination has seduced managers such as Sven-Göran Eriksson and Sir Alex Ferguson.

Veron probably played his best football in Italy, but the concentrated best fell in the period between the late 1990s and his arrival in Manchester in 2001. At Inter, whom he joined in 2004, he lasted two years, and, at 30, decided to move back home.

In Argentina, he has polarised opinion to a more exaggerated degree than at Stamford Bridge or the Stretford End. Imagine the sort of debate United followers might have about Veron’s value to their team in the 2001-03 period and magnify it in Buenos Aires to the power of 10. And now remember how some of England’s followers responded to David Beckham when the Three Lions came home from the 1998 World Cup before the quarter-finals and identified their scapegoat. Veron suffered something like that when Argentina were denied, partly by England, a place in the second round of the World Cup in 2002.

What happened when Argentina came home from 2002, as Miguel Angel Bertolotto of the Clarin newspaper recalls: “They made Veron the villain of the piece. It became like an established fact that he was the one responsible for the early departure, and he paid dearly. It meant he did not make the squad for the World Cup in Germany, and there wasn’t a single Argentinian who believed in the argument of the then head coach Jose Pekerman that it was for purely football reasons.”

For purely football reasons, there would be a scramble for Veron’s signature when he did go back to Argentinian domestic football. Boca Juniors wanted him. River Plate wanted him. Veron said no to both, and appeared to be saying no to his best chances of trophies. He said yes to Estudiantes, his old club, the club his father played for in the 1960s, instead. Within six months, they had won the league, Veron by many reckonings the most vital component of the championship success. “The prodigal son who came back to triumph,” announced La Nacion.

A far bolder resurrection would be celebrated if he helps Argentina to a major international prize. They are overdue. Apart from the 2004 Olympic gold, Argentina have gone without since the Copa America of 1993. The head coach then, Alfio Basile, is again in charge. He dares to play Veron in the same midfield as the creative but languorous Juan Roman Riquelme. A revived Veron insists this Argentina return is anything but sentimental. Once he had been called up, he declared that his next target would be the 2010 World Cup.

Return of the witch

Nicknamed La Brujita (the little witch) Argentina’s Juan Sebastian Veron signed with Estudiantes in 1994 before a spell with Boca Juniors. Bought by Sven-Göran Eriksson for Sampdoria in 1996, he moved to Parma two years later. The following year, Eriksson signed him again, this time for Lazio for £18.1m. Manchester United paid a record £28.1m for him in 2001. He went to Chelsea in 2003 for £15m, and was then loaned to Inter Milan before returning to Estudiantes last summer

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